Archive of Spotlight Feature Articles

2006 Arctic Research Cruise

By John Kermond

The Kapitan Dranitsyn is in the background, while the buoy on the ice is about to be deployed.

The Kapitan Dranitsyn is in the background, while the instrument on the ice is about to be deployed. Credit: Mike Dunn, North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences

The Nansen-Amundsen Basin Observation System (NABOS) research cruise was held in late summer of 2006 aboard the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn (KD). The KD is a powerful, conventional propelled icebreaker constructed in 1982 at the Wartsila Shipyard in Helsinki, Finland. The bow and the hull of the ship are specially designed so that the ship actually “breaks” ice by sliding up on the shelf and then the weight of the ship fractures the ice sheet. The Murmansk Shipping Company operates the vessel.

Primarily funded by the NOAA/OAR/Climate Program Office (CPO) Arctic Research Program, the cruise was the fifth in a series investigating oceanographic parameters in the Arctic. The expedition departed Kirkenes in the Norwegian north and traveled east to almost 150 degrees and as far north as 83 degrees.

Crew and scientists are transported to the ice in a cage-like hoist

With no gangway available, scientists and crew had to be hoisted from the ship to the ice. Credit: Mike Dunn

This marine profiling instrument can motor up and down the cable to prescribed depths

The marine profiling instruments are set up to “motor” up and down the cable to prescribed depths. Special bumpers are positioned at both ends of the profile range. Credit: Mike Dunn

The main organizing entity was the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. The IARC organized the numerous international entities represented, a noteworthy part of the NABOS 2006 cruise. A list of participating organizations is below.*

Mooring operations were carried out at various stations both over and between continental shelves. This involved both deep and shallow water moorings. At least two of the previous year’s moorings were lost despite valiant efforts to locate them. Possible explanations for the lost moorings were that the flotation was compromised (eg. rust holes in the steel balls) or that the mooring was stuck under adjacent ice sheets. A feature of ocean moorings in the Arctic is that they are always sub-surface because of the presence of ice. This has enormous implications for deploying and retrieving moorings in the Arctic, making the use of both Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCP) and marine profiling instruments obligatory.

Another special feature of the NABOS 2006 cruise was the inclusion of a film crew to document the expedition. With funding assistance from CPO, and in conjunction with a consortium of U.S. science centers (notably the Minnesota Science Center and the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences), the crew used state-of-the-art high definition (HD) cameras and special time-lapse digital photography to record all of the work done both on the ship and on the ice. The work debuted at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco in December 2006, where a polar dome was used to project wide-angle views and time-lapse scenes. The HD footage will also be used to provide global media for the upcoming International Polar Year (IPY), beginning March 1, 2007.

In addition to the research expedition, international teachers were selected to participate in the IARC Arctic Expedition for K-12 Teachers. World-class instructors, as well as expedition scientists, were engaged in daily lectures with the teachers. Teachers were selected from Russia, Germany, France, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the United States.

Participating Agencies:

International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research from Germany;
Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute from St. Petersburg, Russia;
Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, from Moscow, Russia;
DAMOCLES (Developing Arctic Modeling and Observing Capabilities for Long-term Environmental Studies)

The Climate Program Office (CPO) coordinates climate activities across NOAA. CPO focuses on developing a broader user community for climate products and services, provides NOAA a focal point for climate activities within NOAA, leads NOAA climate education and outreach activities, and coordinates international climate activities.

1/15/07

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